Flexible board wood floor covering



A. ELMENDORF FLEXIBLE BOARD WOOD FLOOR COVERING Nov. 9, 1937.

Filed Sept. 13, 19:55

Patented Nov. 9, 1937 UNITED STATES eArsar OFFICE Armin Elmendorf, Chicago, Ill.

Application September 13, 1935, Serial No. 40,390

10 Claims.

The object of the present invention is to produce an inexpensive, attractive and durable floor covering composed mainly or entirely of boards; which covering may be laid quickly and with very little labor upon a floor or subfioor and adapt itself to the surface irregularities of the latter; and which, in use, will present a smooth, even wearing surface free from objectionable cracks or crevices under all of the varying conditions to which the floor covering may be subjected.

Viewed in one of its aspects, the present invention may be said to have for its object to produce an inexpensive floor covering presenting a wood-wearing face, which cover may be laid upon a floor or subfioor in much the same manner as linoleum, which need not be secured to the underlying support, and which for an indefinite length of time will continue to present a smooth, even wearing face free from objectionable openings regardless of wide changes in the moisture content thereof.

In order that a floor covering may be fabricated in the form of large sheets or panels which may then be laid as simply and easily as the ordio5 nary type of sheet floor covering, as, for example,

linoleum, it is necessary that means be provided to secure together-a considerable number of individual pieces of Wood. The simplest way of building up such-a panel or sheet is to gluethe wood elements to a suitable backing. By making the backing flexible and providing flexibility in the wood, the sheet or panel will lay itself snugly upon a floor surface to be covered and follow the main irregularities in the latter. The flexible backing may conveniently be felt, preferably saturated to render it waterproof. If the costof the product is to be kept low, the thickness of the wood must be much less :than that of ordinary or standard flooring boards. The wood may conveniently be in the form of boards which, to conserve material, must be thin. However, when thin boards are glued to a flexible backing they warp when subjected to moisture changes; this warping being especially serious when the 4.: boards are thin as they must be for my purpose. To avoid this difficulty I saw or slice each thin board into very narrow strips. For example, the widths of the strips are preferably not much greater than their thickness. Thus if the boards are about of an inch or of an inch thick, namely half the thickness of ordinary floor boards, the boards should be out into strips of widths more or less approximating these thicknesses. Then when the strips made from a single board are glued to the backing, there no longer remains a wide board that can warp as explained above, but there are present only a series of narrow strips, the warping of which, when they are properly held to the backing is not discernible under ordinary observation. The cutting up of the wide boards into strips serves other purposes among which are that of providing flexibility and that of distributing the total shrinkage of a panel or complete floor covering, transversely of the lengths of the strips, between a large number of joints as distinguished from the few joints that would exist between the same boards in their undivided state. This latter characteristic is important because it insures that the surface of the floor covering will remain, to all intents and. purposes, continuous. regardless of the expansion and contraction of the wood.

The panels may be made comparatively narrow, so that short pieces of board will be long enough to extend entirely across the same from one long edge to the other. This permits the use of boards that would otherwise be wasted because unsuitable for floors constructed in the ordinary way.

Each panel may be so constructed that it will interlock with panels meeting the same edge to edge, and thereby cause the ends of meeting strips to be held together. This may conveniently be accomplished by suitable tongue and groove arrangements. For example, each panel may have in one long edge a groove and at the opposite long edge a projecting tongue, as in a tongue and groove floor board. When two such panels are brought together with the tongue of one panel facing the groove in the other, the entry of the tongue into the groove causes the two panels to be tied together so that the end of the strip in one panel cannot rise above or drop below the end of the strip in the other panel with which it registers in whole or in part. When glue is introduced into the joint'between two such meeting panels, the union of the two panels becomes such as to produce, in effect, a single panel of double width. Another way of connecting together two panels is to place between the meeting edges thereof, a narrow, flexible strip, the panels and the strip being interlocked 'by means of tongues and grooves extending lengthwise of the joints. These strips may be made in any desired lengths.

The various features of novelty whereby my invention is characterized will hereinafter be pointed out with particularity in the claims; but, for a full understanding of my invention and of the objects and advantages, reference may be had to the following detailed description taken in connection with the accompanying drawing, wherein:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a fragment of a panel embodying the present invention, together with a pair of spacing strips separated from the two long edges of the panel; Fig. 2 is a view similar to Fig. 1, showing fragments of three adjacent panels assembled with the spacing strips positioned between the meetingedges; Fig. 3 is a view similar to Fig. 1, showing a modification; Fig. 4 is a view similar to Fig. 2, showscale, of a fragment of a board which is slit only part way through, so'that the strips remain connected through little strands. In the arrange- 'ment shown in Fig. 1, l is a pieceof felt or other suitable. flexible material of any desired length and width upon which lie, in edge contact with each other, a great many thin narrow strips 2 of wood; the strips glued to the felt butnot to each other, so that the structure as a whole remains flexible. The. composite structure is prefably in the form of square or rectangular panels. One dimension of a panel is determined by the length'of the strips, whereas the other dimenby thin connecting webs, as in Fig. 5. The cut- I sion at right angles to the first, may be made as small or as great as desired. The dimension parallel with the length of the strips is preferably short, say in the neighborhood of one foot, so. that short pieces of board may be used. The strips are produced by cutting or sawing entirely or only part way through a thin board along parallel longitudinal lines, thus producing strips that are either completely separated from each other, as in' Figs. 1 :and 2, or are held together ting may be done with rotating knives or fine saws and is preferably done partly through one face of the'board and partly through the other face so as to leave clean, sharp corners.

When a board, such as the board H) of Fig. 5 is only partially severed, the corresponding slits ll through opposite faces being spaced, apart at their inner ends by little uncut sections or webs I2, the figure of the wood is retained in each board. This effect may also be retained in the completely divided board by keeping the individual strips in the same positions relatively to each otherwhich they occupied in the original board. r

'The strips are thin, preferably from five-sixteenths to three-eighths of an inch thick, 'and are narrow. The heavierdividing lines between strips in Fig. 1 are intended to indicate the edges of the original boards. Each board is shown as having been cut into five strips, which would give each strip in a two inchboard a width of about three-eighths of an inch.

The facing strips are shownas beinggrooved at their ends, as indicated at 3, in such a manner that when the strips are assembled on the backing the resulting panel will have a groove running lengthwise. of each long or side edge.

To cover a floor with my improved'material, the panelsmay be simply laid down on the latter, without employing any fastening means. Betweenmeeting panels I place spacing strips which interlock with the grooves in the adjacent edge'faces of the panels; the spacing strips lying flush with thetop faces of thepanels so as to ing to adjust itself to high and low spots in the underlying floor or subfioor. If the spacing strips are made sufficiently narrow they will-be flex ible enough to permit conformity with the underlying surface. If a greater degree of flexibility be desired, the spacing strips may be made in short sections. Thus, in Fig. 1 one of the spacing strips, 4, is shown as being a fragment of a long strip, whereas the other spacing strip 5 is shown as being made up of short pieces. Of oourse,'quite aside from the need for flexibility, the spacing strips may be made of short pieces,

ifig fragments of three of'the panels in 3? it if desired and Fig. 5 is an edge view, on a much larger Each spacing strip has at opposite sides tongues 6 that extend lengthwise thereof and are adapted .to enter the edge grooves in the panels.

v 7 If glue is placed in the grooves or on the tongues, or

lboth, before panels and spacing strips are assembled, the Whole will be united in a single structure so that the entire floor covering will, in

effect, be a single unit. The spacing strips fix' the dimension of the floor covering across the grain of the wood in the boards, which is the direction in which shrinking in the boards occurs; whereas the boards-themselves determine and fix the dimensionof the covering in the direction parallel to the lengths of the boards. Consequently, the length andwldth of the floor covering will remain constant under the varying conditions of moisture content to which it is subjected in use, and the covering need not be glued or cementedto the floor orsubfloor.

assembly of panels as it appears in its final posi-p tion of use is illustrated in Fig. 2.

If no spacing strips are desired between the panels, the wood facings of the panels may each have a groove in one long edge and a. complementary tongue at the, other: long edge. Thus, in Fig. 3 the strips 1 are shown as each having a groove 3 in one end, and as having a projecting tongue. element 8 at the opposite end. When a and that short pieces of wide boards that other-.

wise have little'or no commercial value may be 'used; that the difiiculties' that arise in the use of standard flooring are eliminated; and that the covering adjusts itself automatically'to the surface irregularities of thesupporting floor or subflooron which it rests; Thus the covering is economical as tov cost of materials and as to cost of labor in laying it, and it provides a most excellent and durable wearing surface conforming to the contour of the supporting foundation even though the latter be not flat.

While I have illustrated and described with particularity only a single preferred form of my invention, with slight modifications, I do not desire to be limited to the exact structural details thus illustrated and described; but intend to cover all forms and arrangements which come within the definitions of my invention constituting the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel contain ing'a flexible backing and thin, narrow, parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, and other Wood strips arranged at right angles to the aforesaid strip between and glued to the meeting edges of the panels.

2. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow, parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, and other wood strips arranged at right angles to the aforesaid strip between and glued to the meeting edges of the panels, the upper faces of the various strips lying in the same plane.

3. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow, parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, and other Wood strips between and glued to the meeting edges of the panels, the last mentioned strips and the adjacent ends of the strips overlying the backings having shoulders that interlock with each other and prevent relative displacement out of the plane of the panels.

4. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow, parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, and other wood strips arranged transversely of the aforesaid strips between the meeting edges of the panels, the panels and the strips interposed between them being interlocked to prevent relative vertical displacement.

5. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow, parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, other short wood strips arranged transversely of the aforesaid strips between the meeting edges of the panels, and means for holding said short strips and said panels against relative vertical displacement.

6. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow, parallel strips of wood lying close together and glued to the backing, and wood strips between and glued to the wood and the felt at the meeting edges of the panels.

7. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow, parallel strips of wood lying close together on and. glued to the backing, and means at the meeting edges of the panels locking the panels together and holding them against displacement out of the plane of the panels.

8. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, each panel edge which contains end grain meeting a similar edge of another panel, and means at such meeting edges lockingthe panels together and holding the adjacent marginal portions of the panels against relative displacement out of their mutual plane.

9. A fioor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel containing a flexible backing and thin, narrow parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, each panel edge which contains end grain meeting a similar edge of another panel, each panel having in each of the edges containing end grain a tongue or groove adapted to fit a complementary groove or tongue on a meeting panel.

10. A floor covering comprising a plurality of panels arranged edge to edge, each panel con-v taining a flexible backing and thin, narrow parallel strips of wood lying close together on and glued to the backing, each panel edge which contains end grain meeting a similar edge of another panel, and other wood strips positioned between such meeting edges and interlocked therewith to prevent relative displacement transversely of the plane of the flooring.

ARMIN ELMENDORF. 

